


pre-chorus

by knightcap



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Music, Crushes, Fluff, M/M, they're about the same age [college student ish] in case that isn't clear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 22:26:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11723853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightcap/pseuds/knightcap
Summary: In which Michael is a music producer at a big record label-- or at least, an intern in training-- and Jeremy is just another cute college kid with a dream, and also, too much anxiety to chase it. Michael's latest menial job? To fix it.





	pre-chorus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emilywolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilywolf/gifts).



> "Often, a two-phrase verse containing basic chords is followed by a passage, often harmonically probing, that leads to the full chorus."

  
It’s late, and they’re bored as hell with the fourth mediocre episode of this sitcom when Jeremy suggests it, which is a surprise. It feels weird to remember, all of a sudden, that Michael and Jeremy aren’t really friends. Or maybe they are. But first and foremost, they’re coworkers, and Michael’s job is to Help Jeremy Make Music Better, in whatever form that may take. The talent is there, but not much else. So Jeremy sings, looking for a late night critique with just the two of them and not a microphone or a manager in a quarter mile radius,

and Jeremy shuts himself up halfway through the chorus anyways. Michael doesn’t even bother to comment on his voice. “You’re too nervous.”

“Never heard that one before,” Jeremy mutters, and though his eyes shift in a way that speaks of sudden regret, it’s got Michael smiling. It sounds good to hear Jeremy stand up for himself. He likes him a bit more than he should for some pain in the ass punishment project for showing up late.

“I just, like. Your voice is good. I can tell. Underneath the overwhelming sound of you hating everything that you’re doing.”

The ensuing silence proves he hit it right on the nose. Jeremy breaks it a moment later to crunch a handful of potato chips ungracefully. Half of them spill onto his shirt. Michael giggles even though it really shouldn’t be that funny. Jeremy throws the crumbs at him and lets his hands slide out from under him, leaving him falling with a too hard thump onto his back.

“Sing me a song,” Michael says, when the silence is too long, munching a couple of chips comfortably, speaking around a full mouth. “Anything you like.”

“Nobody likes skinny white guys who angst it up alone with their guitars anymore.”

He can’t help the laugh that explodes out of him at that. Or the chewy potato bits that spray along with it. Jeremy tenses, probably in response to both the laugh and the spit, but Michael’s still cracking up as Jeremy shrieks and fusses with trying to get himself clean. “Is that seriously what you like?”

“For _get_ it,” Jeremy says. He’s going fucking red, red blush on thin cheeks and there’s Michael’s drool and snack and unbrushed hair and so much grease on him and Michael kinda wants to make out with him anyways. That’s a problem for another time.

“I’m totally not forgetting it. Your words, not mine. Can you really play guitar?”

There’s a second of hesitance. “Yes.”

Something clicks.

Michael’s eyes widen. “You don’t.”

Jeremy knows that Michael knows.

He freezes.

Michael pounces.

He crashes into him, graceful as a bull, respectful as a hornet, and probably shattering a million workplace rules and recommendations. “You can’t play guitar, you play ukulele, don’t you!”

“It’s easier!” Jeremy whines, giving up, letting himself be tossed like a ragdoll, and Michael lets go of his shoulders, laughing all over again. Jeremy Heere is a  _nerd_.

By the time it dies to a mere giggle and then a wheeze and then a half-content, half-embarrassed silence, Jeremy’s face has been reduced to a mere pink hue, and he admits, “It’s easier, and it’s fun. Piano’s too…”

“Too much work,” Michael supplies, but Jeremy shakes his head.

“Like, too important. Adele can’t write a song about wanting to be a rockstar and expect it to sound right coming from a Baby Grand.”

“But it will from a Mahalo?”

Jeremy groans at Michael’s overenthusiastic terrible joke. “You DJ out of GarageBand, why am I listening to you?”

“Because I’m the one with the fancy internship.”

“You can’t expect me to think you’re cool after I saw you cry after losing a bidding war online.”

“It was a _very important bidding war_ , Jer.” The nickname rolls off his tongue easily, and he just shakes his head. His face sorta hurts from all this smiling. Jeremy doesn’t have to think he’s cool, he just has to like him. Which he’s starting to think he sorta does. They’re hanging out, like, as friends, and not as tutor and tutee, which is cool. Michael’s super into that.

“Whatever, man.”

They stop poking at each other, and lapse into silence. It’s not that long, because Michael hates silence no matter how comfortable, so he says, “I wanna hear one of your shitty sad angst songs on the ukulele,” and Jeremy plunges his face into his hands.

 

\---

 

  
Michael commits a minor crime for the greater good and sneaks them into the recording studio late in the night. It’s the world’s most informal sesh, and the sleek technology and soundproof walls look hilarious next to Jeremy in his bedhead and threadbare pajamas. Michael locks himself in the control room and gives Jer a thumbs up and a big grin, and waits on folded hands.

Jeremy looks uncertain, and plucks at the strings a few times, and then he starts hitting them, pulling out a G, a C, a--

“Do I have to sing an original?”

  
Michael hits the counter a few times, narrowly missing important buttons. “Quit stalling!”

Jeremy sighs, and plays the G, the C, the strumming pattern becomes more regular. He’s been playing simple chords in silence for way too long when he finally starts singing, and Michael leans in a little more.

It’s nothing special. From like, a music producer point of view. The beginning drags and there are a couple forced rhymes, and it’s way, way too clunky.

But from a Michael point of view? Jeremy’s nervous warbles are gone and replaced with intentional ones that show off his range, and he’s got a focus that Michael’s never seen before as he looks down and watches his fingers, and he’s singing something that Michael’s never heard before, something he wrote, and by the end he almost looks comfortable.

Almost. He yanks the headphones off almost before the final strum has stopped reverberating in the air, looking up with big blue eyes that ask the question before he does a split second later, “How was-”

“It’s awesome,” Michael says, because with the gushy smile he’s got going, he can’t help but give the Michael answer instead of the music answer. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and not just as a patch. Jeremy’s still got a nervous face, because he answered too fast, so he shakes his head and adds more to try and make it sound more legit. “You sound a million times better on that than anything else. It’s more you.” Jeremy still doesn’t answer.

  
Michael tries a third time. “I didn’t record it. You wanna try again?”

He plucks the E string, lets the sharp note ring, and nods, and starts again-

“And linger less on the intro!” Michael yells through the intercom, and Jeremy yells “Got it!”, and Michael’s smile lasts the rest of the night.

**Author's Note:**

> one minute ur having fun making up aus then the next ur turning them into tooth-rotting drabbles ..
> 
> i don’t have a song in mind for what jeremy was singing, but i was listening to [this track](https://willconnolly.bandcamp.com/track/baby-brothers) while writing the second half .. will connolly has such a pretty voice!!


End file.
